No news to make for Job Search Part 3 yet, so I though I might delve into the meaning of it ALL, if you will. A new hypothesis has me thinking about that - it's called Geotectonic Ocean Heat Transfer, put forth by RE, the main admin at the website Doomstead Diner.
The last twenty years, earthquake and volcanic activity has been on the rise, markedly. If you know anything about the exponential function and how that relates to the currency, to population, to resource extraction and use, well, if you look at a graph of aggregate, global earthquake activity the last 40 years, you see a similar growth curve.
Total strength of world wide earthquakes
http://research.dlindquist.com/quake/historical/?mag=0&type=strength&freq=year&s\tyle=nonlinear
That's strange, don't you think? It's one thing to point to carbon emissions, or oil use, or water extraction, and say we have caused that. But when you realize one sizable earthquake might contain the energy equivalent of a few dozen or hundred nuclear bombs, and there are thousands upon thousands of quakes every year, it is beyond absurd to say humans have caused that (unless you are willing to attribute sentience to Gaia, the earth, in which case she might be supremely pissed off, at the aggregate behavior of her arrogant offspring, and has decided to shake things up a bit?)
What is so striking about this hypothesis, is that most earthquake and volcanic activity takes place below the sea, which, as it turns out, is warming faster than the atmosphere. The ocean is one giant heat sink, and it is simply wrong to suggest heating thin air would in turn heat dense water faster than the air is being heated. It does not appear there is any increase in solar output, that might be a contributing factor to the warming oceans. Instead, the hypothesis goes, it is increased tectonic activity below the sea, that is contributing not just to the warming oceans, but consequently, to climate change.
Notice in these graphs, how the early nineties saw a radical increase in earthquake strength overall, and heat content in the oceans. That would seem to contradict the standard model of climate change, which is called Anthropogenic. To date, about 98% of climate scientists are certain humans are to blame, with our burning of fossil fuels in the rampant way that we do. The other 2% are generally fundamentalist Christians who cannot believe, and paid-for corporate shills who won't. The problem of course is, anytime 98% of any group believe the same thing, when that thing is of great import, that's called orthodoxy; getting the orthodox to accept or even entertain anything, however factual, that might suggest a flaw in the core belief, is damn near impossible (see aforementioned Christians.)
The Geotectonic Ocean Heat Transfer hypothesis does not in fact contradict ACC (Anthropocentric Climate Change). Whatever is happening to the climate, we are certainly exacerbating that. There is nothing particularly healthy for the biosphere, polluting it the way we do, and what isn't healthy for the biosphere isn't healthy for the biological entity known as people, whatever the propaganda says about this glorious Age. Civilization as we know it is economically beneficial to a small number of humans, disastrous for the majority, and catastrophic for life generally. There isn't any question at all, approaching the 400 ppb number, of carbon molecules in the atmosphere, we are helping to heat up the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. But there is clearly something else going on.
RE suggests, as our solar system is passing through the plane of the ecliptic of the Milky Way, from above the plane to below the plane, the nearer we are to the plane, the more we are bombarded with neutrinos flowing from the center of the galaxy, which is putting a strain on all the interstellar bodies - the other planets and the sun.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/167057-Defenses-Down-Galactic-Dust-Storm-Hits-Solar-System)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3222476/Suns-protective-bubble-is-shrinking.html
Whatever the cause, it is certainly a paradigmatic shift to say that climate change is being caused by changes within the earth, particularly when you are suggesting the driver of that is something coming from outside the heliosphere. Because if that is the case, well, it would seem to suggest we are fucked, if the increase in tectonic activity continues. We've grown accustomed to the idea of continuity. Not just here in America the last seventy years, with the ever growing economy, but over all, the last 10,000 years. We are told, that when the ice from the last ice age finally melted, the climate settled into a nice calm groove, we started planting seeds, and it's been all progress on this (climatically) stable planet ever since. RE suggests the heating of the oceans will mean more moisture in the air, ever more rains, and ever more cloud cover, until the earth is shrouded and things cool down. That of course would lead to another ice age, and very great difficulties unknown in recent memory, for a higher mammal called Homo sapien. As in, population bottleneck. That likely has happened before, when the Toba volcano in the south pacific blew it's top, 70,000 years ago, shrouding the skies with particulate, blocking the sun and reducing the population of Homo sapien to an estimated 1000 breeding pairs. So it's not like that is without precedent.
But that could never happen to us, right? Because we have conquered nature, right? If there's a more orthodox belief than that, it's hard to imagine.
The Geotectonic Ocean Heat Transfer hypothesis may seem like just another doom and gloom scenario, to add to the bucket full bearing down on us at this point. But I don't think so. I think it's the best news I've heard in awhile. How can that be? Well, I've never made much of a secret that I think this universe is divine, which is to say, imbued with energy and conscious intent, throughout. Hearing that the earth is acting up tectonically, that the whole solar system is in upheaval, at the same time the human exponential growth curve has reached it's peak, at the same time our financial markets seem on the cusp of collapse, at the same time we seem to be on the verge of global war for the last of the oil, at the same time the Mayan's cyclical 5,126 long count calendar comes to an end/beginning (5000 years ago we gathered in cities and started writing, 10,000 years ago we started planting seeds) well, it's just another profound layer of mysteriousness. Radical changes are afoot, clearly, on every level. And in light of that, the industrial age begins to look less like a terrible mistake leading inevitably to the extinction of life on planet earth, and more like the necessary growing pains, that we might become aware of the changes that are happening to the entire solar system, and so, prepare ourselves for what is coming. How we do that, I don't know, other than to look at it and be honest. To train our consciousness there. To face it. That we might choose to live more humbly, more harmoniously, on this beautiful planet.
We aren't really doing that of course. More, we are doing whatever we can not to face the radical changes all around us, like this video posted on my Facebook news feed, described by the poster as THIS IS WHAT THE INTERNET WAS MADE FOR.
Gut the resources of the earth to make a washing machine designed with forced obsolescence to break down in less than ten years, but to be destroyed instead for pleasure by some idiot bright enough to heft a rock.
Perhaps it's best to give up on any meaning, in the way of conspicuous affluence and "disposable" income? Or, find this the most propitious of times, to be AWAKE and ALIVE, to BE in a way that is MEANINGFUL, as if we are at the cusp of a transformation unlike anything humanity has ever known?
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BTW - I keep forgetting to mention, one of my readers sent me a great documentary Once Upon A Time In Knoxville I highly recommend. A great story of the waste based culture of our time, and what some are doing about it.
6 comments:
Actually, if the hypothesis about the global warming being caused by earthquakes being caused by passing through the galactic equator is correct, this is wonderful news. We should just be about peak earthquakes, so maybe in another 20 years things will be back to normal in that realm.
Still have the rest of the mess to deal with, though.
That is very interesting and certainly livened up my otherwise dull Thursday morning. I have long suspected that there is far more going on, climate-wise, than we can possibly know.
Once, as a journalist in Spain, I spent a night gazing deep into the galaxy with an ex-Nasa astronomer who had turned his entire house into a gigantic telescope. We photographed a galaxy that had never been seen before (there's plenty of 'em) and he gave me a bit of an insight into numerous forces 'out there' which can exert influence upon our own planet. I still believed in the AGW hypothesis (and still do) but at least my mind was opened to the possibility that scientists acting in a consensus might not be 100 correct all the time.
Still, it's strangely reassuring if it really is the case. When you consider that the Earth's crust is only 0.1% (approx) of the diameter, is it really too much to think that a slight wobble, magnetic upheaval or acceleration/deceleration of velocity could cause stress around the fault lines?
BTW, this guy says the galactic equator cycle is 30 million years long for Earth and that we are a few hundred thousand years away from crossing it. Who to believe?
Actually, should have said we were looking deep into the UNIVERSE, not the galaxy.
Here are some of the pictures he has taken of distant galaxies.
John,
Unfortunately, peak tectonic activity, if we are approaching that as on a cycle, could mean anything, in terms of quake and volcanic potential. We've no guarantees. And yes, we don't need a Toba to destroy the world. We can do that ourselves very easily.
Jason,
We are deeply conditioned to think dualistically, that if it's not one it has to be the other. Why not - both, and...? No question AGW is true; it is only false to say, if there is another contributing factor, then AGW can't be true.
The earth isn't actually round. I believe it is somewhat quashed, wider in diameter east/west than n/s, due to gravitational exertion. Which suggests, any shift in gravitational intensity would either quash it more, or make it more like a ball, in which case, destabilizing fault lines. Perhaps the same effect related to the shrinking and weakening of the heliosphere, whatever that is?
BTW - I knew I shouldn't have inserted that graphic. I was suspicious of it from the start. Though if that guy of your link is right, and I suspect he is - and it is true things will get bumpier the closer we get to the equator, then we haven't seen anything yet...
The only truly credible thing I have heard about 2012 as it relates to astronomy, came from here:
http://www.infinitelymystical.com/2012-essays.html
Jason,
Forgot to mention, I love pics of galaxies. I especially love those from the Hubble, that show dozens of galaxies. To think that we have just begun to discover planets outside our solar system, in our own galaxy, with perhaps and many galaxies out there, as there are stars in this one!
When you think of it most knowledge that is accepted as gospel is eventually turned on its ear. I guess, given enough time, most knowledge will be debunked or superseded. The current climate change theories may be no different. But the Earth Mother is ever changing. That is her nature. I agree though, the little blue planet may be warming up as a natural course of events, the problem seems to be we are speeding up the process. And that ain't good.
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